Legend of Spyro: Dragon's Return
by Nightspark43
Summary: Creatures from all around the world come out of hiding from Malefor's army, two dragons travel to find a new home through the events of their past, and the wreckage of the present.
1. Chapter 1

_I of course do not own the Legend of Spyro trilogy in any way, I only own the general ideas for the Original Characters featured in this story.  
_

* * *

Chapter 1

It's been six days since the world was torn apart and put back together, six days since the Belt of Fire circled the planet and threatened everything on it, six days, since the nineteen years of darkness and fear, had come to an end.

Three days ago, me and my mate left the cave we had been hiding in for almost ten years, I am Umbra, a Shadow dragoness, my scales are black, my belly is gray, and my eyes are green, I have a total of four horns, all four on the top of my head sweeping back, like a fair number of dragoness body types, I am rather lean and built for speed. My mate is Typhon, a Wind dragon, he is all shades of gray, and his eyes are bright yellow, he has six horns, two near his temples going from the top of his head back, two on the sides of his head twisting forward to near his mouth, a small one on his chin, and one at the back of his head, he is rather muscular, being built for endurance and strength.

We had been on the move most of the daylight the last three days, resting only when we were sure that nothing was following us, a necessary habit from the time that had only just gone.

Just when we settled down in a forest clearing for the night, I found myself thinking about our old home, our village, it was destroyed by an ape raid almost fourteen years ago, we had lost everything in an instant, and we weren't even there to do anything about it.

"Umbra, are you alright?" Typhon asked worriedly, pulling me close and breaking me out of my thoughts. "You're crying,"

"I am, I was just thinking about all that's happened," I answered, nuzzling into his chin, using his horn as a cradle for my snout. We stayed like that for a while, cuddling, nuzzling, and purring, until we heard something move in the bushes.

Almost instantly we were to our paws, some tangling notwithstanding, I could feel Typhon's wind pushing at me as I extended my shadow towards the sound.

What stepped into the clearing made me falter somewhat. A cheetah, young, bow in hand, arrow nocked and aimed at us, probably was on his first hunt, possibly even before the Destroyer's path finished, his hands were shaking, either fear or exertion, I wasn't sure.

"W-who are you, what are you doing here?" The cheetah stammered out at us.

"Calm down, we're just resting here for the night," I assured him, putting more extension on my shadow, hoping he wouldn't notice.

"These are our lands, just go away!" He yelled out, about to loose his arrow.

Just as I was about to attempt to restrain the youngling, "Tarkal, enough!" a voice called from behind the cheetah, almost instantly he stopped aiming at us, arms falling to his side, and remaining draw planting the arrow lightly into the ground. As the owner of the voice approached, the young one turned towards it, and from the edge of the forest came a much taller, darker furred cheetah with a scowl on his face.

"Father, these trespassers!" Argued the young one, now known to be Tarkal, gesturing to us as we quieted our elements.

"You leave them to me, now return to the village, immediately," Commanded Tarkal's father, which elicited some minor protests for Tarkal until he found they were pointless. Once Tarkal was back into the forest, his father approached us, picking up the arrow from the dirt, demeanor lighter now.

"I trust my son has not harmed you," The cheetah said stopping not far from us, "He is overly eager to prove himself capable,"

"No, we are fine, though had you not appeared, I would have been more afraid for him, than us," Typhon explained, "Umbra is not known for holding back when pushed," He said, resulting in a glance and a light full body shove into his side from me.

"I'm not sure whether or not to be glad or worried about that," Tarkal's father noted, "In any case, I do not believe you to be evil, you are welcome to stay in our village for the night, under watch of course,"

"Likely warm building, and security, after being out here for as long as us, you start to crave stuff like that, I accept if you do," I commented, looking up at Typhon who nodded.

"Great, it is just this way," The cheetah said starting off in the direction he came.

During the walk, we introduced ourselves, and he did Tarkal, and himself as Marata, just when he finished his introduction, we reached the village, a fair sized one on a small plateau, I couldn't help but smile at the thought of village life again.

* * *

Well, Chapter 1 done, do let me know what you think, I'm looking to improve in any way I can, also, the name, summary, and image are all WIP. Edit, I've thought through the events I have planned, and took a look through another explanation of genres, and fixed things.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter 2, actually took me longer than I thought to get this done._

* * *

As we walked up the, rather small, path up the plateau, I heard a voice yelling down to us.

"Marata, what is the meaning of this?" It came from an old looking leopard, the village elder I assumed, "Your son came bursting into my hut, yelling about how you invited dragons to our village with no care for who they are, or what they were doing here!"

He was in the center of a pair of guards, a jaguar and a tiger, with Tarkal on his right.

"Tarkal confronted them Elder, if they meant harm, they would have killed him, I saw the female's shadow!" Marata argued, it was then that I started tuning the argument out in favor of taking a look around, it was then that I got an overdue look at Tarkal and Marata. They did look quite similar, as expected, with Marata being a deep cream color, and an until now unnoticed strange marking on his back, three black lines from his neck down into his clothing. Tarkal was a much paler shade, and I assume a similar marking, though I haven't seen his back while not on in the middle of a fight response.

With that out of the way, I looked around at the village as a whole, felines of all kinds, shapes, and sizes, tigers, cheetahs, leopards, lynxes, lions, some of them must have had to travel a very long distance to get here, all of them staring at us. I shifted my focus to the buildings, palisade defenses, pillars covered in unknown symbols, houses of various kinds, mud walls, straw roofs, wood walls, straw walls, wood roofs, every hut a different combination, likely from all kinds of cultures.

It was then that Typhon nudged me back to the argument, which was winding down now, I had missed most of it.

"Enough, they can stay, under supervision, for tonight, and only tonight, and if they even **think** something threatening against our village, I will have them, and every other dragon that comes **near** this village _**executed**_!" the Elder yelled, his face clearly red through his tan fur, from rage and exertion I assumed.

Me and Typhon looked at each other, and then to the Elder before saying, "We accept your terms." at the same time.

This had the effect of getting everyone present to look at us incredulously, but we stood firm against the looks.

After some time of staring at each other, the Elder relented, "Very well, take them to where they'll be staying," he told his guards, his tone of voice told me everything I needed to know about where he wanted us to stay.

"Follow us," the jaguar guard said simply, with detest in his voice than I heard in the Elder's. I started noticing a trend, I made a mental note to ask Marata before we left. After a short walk we came to a medium sized mud brick building with a metal gate door, which confirmed my thoughts, they were throwing us in prison.

"In," the tiger said this time, and when we complied, they quickly shut the door with a clang. I only sighed as Typhon went and laid in the middle of the room and invited me over with his wing. We just laid like that for quite some time.

After some time, I asked, "How did Marata get the Elder to let us stay, I, missed, most it."

"I noticed," he chuckled, I just smiled up at him, "Guilting him, he asked the Elder if he expected to group all dragons into evil, while maintaining that all others could be good or evil, it made the Elder angry, but he kept the pressure on until he gave in."

"This is starting to get a bit interesting, he meets us, and the same night, defends us tooth and claw, I think he's up to something, don't know what yet though." I said, craning my neck to nuzzle Typhon, "But, for now, we have something to get back to, don't we?"

He just smiled at me, I'm fairly sure the guards heard quite a bit more than they would have liked.

The next day

I awoke to the door opening, and a small nudge from Typhon, Marata walked in with the two guards.

"Come to see us off?" I inquired audibly groggy.

"Long night?" Marata asked, me and Typhon smiled while the guards turned shades of red and looked away, "Ah, I see."

"But that's for some other time, I'm pretty sure your elder wants us out of here as soon as possible." I said, crawling out from under Typhon's wing and stretching, I heard Typhon stretching as well.

"Yes, I am to take you to the edge of out territory," Marata told us, we nodded in agreement.

Typhon walked up beside me, "I am ready to if you are," he said, nipping the back of my neck.

"I'm all ready whenever," I confimed, nuzzling into his throat.

Marata looked over at the guards, "You aren't needed anymore, I'll take them by myself," the guards nodded and walked off, "Shall we go, I'd hate to see the Elder get any angrier,"

On our way out of the village, what I expected to be every single villager were staring at us, not unlike the looks from the night before. I had to ask Marata about it as soon as I could.

The moment I was sure we were far enough away from the village, I took the chance, "Marata, I have to ask, it's obvious that dragons are not liked in your village, so why are you helping us as much as you are, with so little reason?" my question cause Marata to falter mid-step, ears nearly flat against his head.

After some time, he sighed and answered, "My village, everyone is here because they were displaced by dragons at some point in their lives, and they all hate them for it, and I was no different," his head dropped sharply, "I was the worst of all, I felt that all dragons were guilty a single one's actions, killed my mate, burned my village for treasure, I wanted all dragons to die,"

He was in tears now, and I was too shocked to do anything, and Typhon made no moves, "Until one day, Tarkal got hurt, badly, he followed me out hunting, and he stepped in one of my traps, I thought he was going to die, but a dragon, came out of nowhere, I tried to fight him, but he got past me, and, healed Tarkal, somehow,"

"Water dragon, the rarest possible, even rarer than shadows, about five of every hundred born are Shadow, two of one hundred are water," Typhon interjected, "They tend to have healing capabilities in their element, usually not many different kinds of healing, usually a flow of water from their mouth, but always potent, villages tend to go crazy over a visiting Water, and a Water resident tends to be treated better than even the elder,"

"Yes, and I'm thankful for him, and sorry for everything I thought, I learned that what happened to me, that dragon, he wasn't the norm, and that everything I had done was in blind rage, I tried everything I could to try to make the others see, but they just shunned me, I wasn't allowed to even hunt again," Marata started again, "And then I did what started everything, I followed someone out hunting, Tarkal, and then I met you, I knew you were just what I needed to make them see, and the rest you already know,"

By the time Marata finished, we were at the edge of the forest, "I'm afraid this is where we part, I want to thank you for everything you've helped me accomplish here, by the time you return to our village, I hope that we will welcome dragons with open arms," he said with a small bow, I just walked up and hugged him with a foreleg, Typhon nodded to him, he started off back the way he came with a wave.

"I know they say that conversation makes travel shorter, but that felt pretty short, in any case, we're making good time right now," I commented, "Now come on, we should get going,"

We entered a much lighter forested area, after a while of walking, Typhon noticed something in the sky, "Umbra, up there, dragons, two, coming this way," I looked up, and saw them too, two dragons, of rather peculiar shade, one black, the other, purple.

* * *

 _I'm not sure if that's too suggestive or not, if I become aware of it or not, I'll make sure to fix it._


	3. Chapter 3

_Not really sure why this one took so long, I really need to step up my game when it comes to speed._

* * *

When the two dragons flying down to us got close enough, I recognized them. before we left, we both had a dream of a teal dragon, who introduced himself as the Chronicler, who had been thought of by the majority of dragons as just a story, told us that a new era was starting thanks to the dragons Spyro and Cynder. We started our journey because of the dream, though at the time, we never could have imagined that we would cross paths with them.

"Typhon, I think they're the ones from that dream, Spyro and Cynder, the ones who saved the world," I noted, looking over to Typhon.

"I hardly expected them to be so young, they could not be even a quarter of our age," Typhon commented.

We waited there for the two to get closer, when Typhon thought they were in hearing distance he yelled, "Hello there, I did not expect to see other dragons around here," up to them.

When they landed, the purple dragon, who I was very sure was indeed Spyro, said, "we honestly weren't expecting to find anyone else either," he looked at us for a moment, and I briefly noticed the black dragon, Cynder, staring at me curiously, after a small while, Spyro asked, "Who are you anyway?"

Typhon smiled and answered, "My name is Typhon," then, before I could get my word out, he put his wing over me and continued, "And this is my mate, Umbra,"

I smirked and nudged him with my forearm, "I think I can introduce myself," I joked, "And I think we already know who you are, Spyro and Cynder, right?"

"Wait, How do you know us?" Cynder asked.

I chuckled and said, "I doubt there's any dragon alive who doesn't know who you are, four days ago, me and Typhon had the same dream, about you two, said you were the ones who stopped the world from being destroyed, I imagine all of us had that dream, we started for Warfang right after we had it,"

"A dream, the Chronicler, he talked to me using dreams before," Spyro realized, to which I nodded.

Just then, Cynder spoke up, "Hey, do you happen to have had any eggs, maybe around nineteen years ago?" she asked suddenly, the question took me aback briefly.

"We, had, a son, about twenty four years ago, but, he died fourteen years ago, in an ape raid, he was ten," Typhon explained, the story bringing me to tears, I vaguely heard Spyro and Cynder talking, I didn't hear what they said, but I did feel Typhon pull me close and say, "I'm sorry I had to bring him up,"

"No, I have to get past it," I whispered, I looked up at the duo and told them, "If you want, I can tell you about it, I think it'll help me get over it,"

"If it will help, I'll listen," Spyro said, I closed my eyes and began to explain, it was time to confront my past.

* * *

Fourteen years ago...

We lived in a small village far away from here, some of our villagers never even seen places like Warfang, but it was simple, anyone who wanted to stay, could, felines, canines, dragons, all living in the same place. It was mostly a farming and ranching village, what we couldn't grow or find, we traded for with the few caravans that went that far.

To me, everything was perfect, even with everything that happened the last five years, I was happy with how my life was, most of my life was raising sheep for the village, and taking care of my son, Gust. He looked just like his father, it was obvious to me that he would have been a very handsome dragon.

It started with what seemed to be a normal day, I had spent most of the day herding my sheep, it was actually productive, two new lambs, not a single run-away. Gust had been shadowing Typhon most of the day while he performed his duties.

When dusk fell, me and Typhon, excused ourselves as our usual, we were gone for less than an hour, but, when we got back, the village was burning, all of our livestock, dead, those we knew, either gone, or laying on the central path, and apes everywhere.

We fought our way through the horde, desperately looking for our son, and any of the other children, and we found most of them, a few of them were missing, the rest, rounded up, and killed, none of the apes left in the village left it.

To this day, we've found none of the other villagers, I can only hope they weren't captured or tortured.

After that, we ran, and we wandered, for three years we fought for our lives against the army of the Dark Master. At the end of it all, we found a little cave, a bit cramped, but there were consistent migratory patterns of some animals, and a constant presence of mountain dwelling ones, and a good river a small flight away. We stayed in that cave for eleven years, never sure if we would be found, most nights we barely slept, and the only company was each other.

* * *

When I opened my eyes, I saw that Cynder had an expression of both anger and sadness on her face, with Spyro quietly comforting her, at least until she yelled, "Spyro, I'm the one who sent them there!" quite a bit louder than she had wanted. It didn't take her long to realize she had done so, when she did, she looked over at me and Typhon, she started to back up, and flew away.

Spyro yelled after her and started to fly after her, but I stopped him by yelling, "Spyro wait, this is something she needs to talk to one of us about, not you, she very likely already knows you can look past all of that," as I ran past Spyro and started to take off myself, I yelled back to Typhon, "Keep him here for me," I didn't see how he did so.

It took me a while, but I eventually caught a glimpse of Cynder walking down a grown over path. I landed a few feet back and extended my shadow under her, she didn't notice and continued to walk, only to notice her feet stuck to the ground, she tried to move, jump, and even take off, but she was completely unable.

"That's my element ability, adheres living things to my shadow, aren't able to move them off, sorry about using it on you, I just had to make sure we could talk," I said, walking up beside her.

She struggled harder, yelling, "Let me go!" she quite clearly didn't like the restraint much more that I thought, I hugged her while covering her with my wing and withdrawing my shadow.

"That dream me and my mate had, it told us about what happened to you, briefly, and I know that it wasn't really you, we stumbled on you once, you didn't see us, you were addressed as Cynder by some apes, when we saw you with Spyro, we knew that was the **real** you, and not that fake shell," I whispered to her, she appeared to grit her teeth and blink back tears that I thought to be long overdue. I moved over to in front of her and cupped her snout in my paw, examining her face, "Look at you, you're beautiful, you saved the world, and you have someone who truly loves you, you have so much to look forward to, you've started the path to having shadow dragons accepted by everyone, for that, all I can say is thank you,"

Both of us had tears flowing freely, and we hugged a hug I was very familiar with, the hug of a child and a mother, it told me, as much of a hero she was, she was still an adolescent, one who never had a real childhood. At that point, I heard a shout from above, "Cynder!"

We both looked to where the voice came from to see Spyro and Typhon land near us, "Sorry Umbra, I tried,"

I trotted over to Typhon, smiling I told him, "I got out everything I needed to," we nuzzled for a moment until Spyro and Cynder came up to us.

"Umbra, thanks, I feel a lot better after that," Cynder told me, nodding at me.

I nodded back and said, "It's no problem, but enough of that, I remember seeing a flock of wild sheep a bit away, anyone else getting hungry?" after a round of agreements, we were off.

About an hour later, we had finished eating our fill and cleaning ourselves up, and the sun was getting low in the sky, so I noted to the other two, "We have to get back to traveling, we need to get to Warfang as quickly as we can,"

"Warfang, that's actually where we were trying to go too," Spyro told us.

"Perhaps we could travel together for a time, if we all agree that is," Typhon looked around at all of us, and no objections were had.

"It's been eleven years, but I remember that we came from the west, you two were actually headed for a ravine and a mountain, we explored that direction, so we head back that way, I don't think it's changed that much, should be a southern shot to Warfang," I said, starting to walk where my inner compass told me was west.

"Wait, why are you walking, wouldn't flying be faster?" Cynder asked confused.

Typhon chuckled, "When you're as old and big as us, and as untrained as a pair of sheep farmers from a small village, flying long distance is not recommended,"

"Last time I flew too far I ended up getting sick, then again, having an egg in me couldn't have helped," I h laughed with Typhon.

"In any case, flying takes far too much energy in adult, untrained dragons, so walking is our main mode of transport, you can fly ahead if you wish, we can catch up," Typhon finished.

"No, we can walk," Cynder said with Spyro nodding along.

"Well then, let's get going, we have some time before we can't see anymore," I told them, setting off.

A few hours later we found ourselves in a very dark night, and we set about making a fire, gathered wood and some good enough stones, then Spyro lit said wood with fire breath, "Oh yeah, purple dragon forgot about that," I commented, which got a smile from the others.

With that out of the way, we settled down for the night, engaged in small talk for a time, and then I noticed something, Spyro and Cynder were mimicking how me and Typhon were laying, they seemed to be keeping it subdued, but it was quite noticeable.

I quickly excused myself, and shot a quick glance at Typhon, hoping he got the message, I took off, a couple of minutes later, Typhon joined me in a small clearing I found, "I feel there is something more on your mind than you let on," he noted to me, seeing straight through me.

"Yeah, I'm a bit worried about them, I can tell they care about each other, but I don't think they know how to act, if you saw, they were acting like we were, and they seem like they're reliant on each other in terms of their mental state," I explained, "And, this is a relatively minor point, but, I feel so much instinct towards Cynder, I've not been acting on it all that much, but I also don't know where it came from,"

"I have noticed their actions, and I believe I know why you feel like that, perhaps some combination of her age, mental or physical, what happened to her, and, Gust," he answered, at that moment, I noticed a follower in the dark.

"Typhon, Cynder's followed us," I told him.

"I always underestimate a shadow dragon's night vision," he chuckled.

"Yeah, shut up and come here," I demanded before tackling him onto a tree, kissing him, which turned out to actually be fairly uncomfortable, and wrapping our tails together. a moment later, I heard the telltale sign of someone walking into a scene they would rather have not walked into. I looked over and said "You really shouldn't follow two adults on just curiosity, you might walk into something worse than this," with a smile on my face.

Cynder spouted what sounded like combination apology and insult before disappearing back the way she came, "That turned out well, I think," Typhon commented, "Though, I think we have some time now," I just smiled at him.

Some time later, we got back to the camp to Cynder looking quite red, though with her usual rather grumpy expression, "We should get some rest, we'll need to move pretty far to make up for today, and a good rest is exactly what we need to do so," Typhon explained, to many agreements.

* * *

 _I find myself a fan of how this one came out, but then natural bias of my own work and all that jazz, though I still need to work on chapter length, but that's a thing I'm actually improving on every chapter._


End file.
